Israel readies Army on Syrian Border

Israel readies army on Syria border
31 May, 2012 – Al Akhbar

The Israeli army is making preparations along its border with Syria in case Bashar Assad’s regime collapsed, an event which an army commander said could provide Islamist militants with a “warehouse of weapons” and a new operating base.

“Syria is in civil war, which will lead to a failed state, and terrorism will blossom in it,” Major-General Yair Golan told a conference at Bar Ilan University. “Syria has a big arsenal.”

Golan, commander of Israeli forces on the border with Lebanon and the frontline with Syria in the Golan Heights, told an audience at the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies that the situation in Syria put Israel at risk.

It was difficult to forecast how Syria would break up, Golan said. It could be effectively “cantonized” by the conflict, an outcome that would serve Israel’s interests.

The Israeli army was “deeply engaged in getting ready, with plans and physical means” along the borderlines, he said, without offering details.

Syria’s stock of mainly Russian-made weapons includes surface-to-air missiles, surface-to-surface missiles and marine missiles.

It also possesses chemical weapons which Syria never used in its wars against Israel but which could be attractive weapons for militants, the general said.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ended Tel Aviv’s silence on the crisis by calling on Wednesday for tougher world action against Assad.

Barak said he doubted the Syrian president “lost an hour’s sleep” over the expulsion of his envoys from several capitals after the Houla massacre.

“These events in Syria compel the world to take action, not just talk, but action. These are crimes against humanity and the international community must not stand on the sidelines,” Barak said, despite Israel’s own long record of crimes against civilian populations in Palestine and Lebanon. …more